The communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. The proliferation of local, regional, and global networks, such as the Internet, has made available a vast array of information and services. These networking technologies have expanded to include wireless and mobile technologies. Through these networks, information, including multimedia information in the form of pictures, text, audio and video, can be transferred between desktop systems, wireless systems, mobile systems, etc. In addition, users may purchase goods from internet-based businesses and access information and other network-based services through a stationary or mobile internet-connected terminal.
Through multimedia messaging service, multimedia information may be passed between mobile terminals, or between a mobile terminal and an internet-connected server. Furthermore, a mobile multimedia terminal may be capable of producing multimedia information content for transfer to other mobile devices or servers. For example, a multimedia mobile telephone may be equipped with a digital camera for capturing digitized images, in addition to operating as a mobile communications device. Digitized images captured by the multimedia terminal may be transferred through a multimedia messaging service to other mobile terminals or to servers connected to the internet.
Accessing internet-based services through mobile devices has become increasingly prevalent as the number of wireless devices, including mobile telephones, personal data assistants, handheld and laptop computers, continues to expand. Internet-based services are typically accessed though an internet-connected stationary or mobile terminal by typing a character string on the terminal keyboard. For example, to access a business web page using a mobile terminal, a user enters the character string www.business-url.com and presses the send key. The character string represents the web site address, known as the uniform resource locator (URL), locating the internet-based business' web site. After the user enters the URL of the business and presses send, the mobile terminal transmits a message to the web page server of the network-based business to download a web page. The web page server receives the request and transmits the web page content to the terminal. The internet transaction may continue with further correspondence between the mobile terminal and the web page server. If the user wishes to connect to a different site, a new URL may be entered through the mobile terminal. Continued technological advances in communications and data processing will allow simpler and more intuitive access to network-based businesses or services.